


Light

by xpityx



Series: Star Wars Fics [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:55:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29378139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xpityx/pseuds/xpityx
Summary: The landing area was so small and well-hidden that Din almost missed it, despite having been there before. It was always in imminent danger of being taken over by the surrounding jungle, but there was also just something about the place that made him overlook it. Din was sure it was more of Luke’s Force magic but had never asked.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker
Series: Star Wars Fics [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044219
Comments: 21
Kudos: 147





	Light

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd as my usual beta is struggling with pandemic blues <3

The landing area was so small and well-hidden that Din almost missed it, despite having been there before. It was always in imminent danger of being taken over by the surrounding jungle, but there was also just something about the place that made him overlook it. Din was sure it was more of Luke’s Force magic but had never asked. 

As he lowered the ramp of the _Razor Crest II_ Din braced himself for the humidity. It was a little like walking into a wall. A very hot, very wet wall. He usually liked the heat, but the jungles on Yavin 4 were a whole other experience. Thankfully Luke’s training area and home were a little higher up, on a piece of land that had been completely cleared of jungle and benefited from a strong breeze. 

Still, he had to get there first. 

The way through the jungle was not marked of course: Luke had explained that the Jedi still had plenty of enemies, but Din knew the general direction. Regardless, he was certain that Luke had already set out to meet him.

Din’s visor showed a mess of inputs as it tried to identify all of the forty or so species of birds, insects and amphibians that were making noise all at once. He made a gesture at the side of his helmet that reduced the volume level sound was picked up at and analysed, which he’d increase again once he was out in the open.

His visor’s deep scanning allowed him to pick out the jungle’s other secrets: even this far from the old Rebellion base there were the remains of speeders and the occasional powerless blaster. Once or twice when making this journey, Din had stumbled across the body of a Stormtrooper, their amour filthy and half buried beneath roots and vines. He’d known about the Rebellion of course, in the peripheral way that everyone on the outskirts of the galaxy knew about such things: something that was important, but important on a scale that was hard to see when you were worrying about which well had fresh water and who was overcharging for fuel that week. 

Fett had laughed for five minutes when Din had admitted that he hadn’t known who Luke Skywalker was, then had sobered up and asked Din to never tell the Jedi that he knew him. Din hadn’t asked why, but had agreed to never mention Fett to Luke. It seemed like the kind of thing he was better off staying out of.

He’d spent so much time learning the ways of the people who had saved him as a boy that he’d forgotten that there was a whole galaxy of people with their histories and cultures, equally as rich as his own. It felt almost blasphemous to think it, that other people could have ways as important as the Watch. He didn’t know if that was his own failing or a failing of his upbringing, but the idea of either made him uneasy. 

Din was saved from further musing by the sound of footfalls, closely followed by the arrival of Luke. Grogu wasn’t with him, which meant he was being watched by R2D2. Din still didn’t completely trust the droid himself, but Luke did and that had come to mean a lot over the last six months. 

He checked the small, square lump of inert metal that Luke had sent him out into the back-end of the galaxy for this time. It was in his side pack, as it had been the last twenty times he’d checked. Luke had been strangely tentative when explaining his latest lead on his people’s lost history, so Din had been especially careful with what, Luke assured him, was a Jedi data bank. A _holocron_. Although it did exactly nothing when Din touched it. 

It was probably a Jedi thing.

“Din!” Luke enthused, as soon as he was in sight.

“I’ve got the—” Din started, but cut himself off as Luke pulled him into a hug.

Embracing someone in full Mandalorian armour can’t have been very comfortable but that never seemed to stop Luke.

“Grogu is fine, he’s with R2,” Luke said, as he stepped back.

Din nodded. He wouldn’t be completely reassured until he saw him for himself, but he appreciated the intent.

“I’ve got your holocron.”

“Great,” Luke said, gripping Din’s shoulder for a moment. “Let’s get out of this heat, eh?”

Din started to agree but Luke was already off, striding through the jungle as if the thick, tangled roots didn’t exist. Din sighed and did his best to keep up. 

  
  
  
  
  


He had been on Yavin 4 for more than a week but Luke hadn’t mentioned the unusual length of his stay or asked him to hunt down any more lost Jedi artefacts. In fact he’d suggested nothing, which meant that Din was left to his own devices for the few hours that Luke spent teaching Grogu each day.

So far Din had cleaned all the filters in the air scrubbers, repaired some of the stone flooring on one of the unused lower levels and, that morning, had found a problem in the laundry room to keep him occupied. 

About an hour later he was elbow deep in dusty circuits when Luke came down the corridor, announcing himself with a wholly unnecessary knock on the open door of the laundry room.

“Hey,” Din greeted, without turning around.

“Your son isn’t paying attention,” Luke told him. 

“Sorry?” Din tried as he finally looked up.

Luke rolled his eyes, which Din was pretty sure was not the correct response to an apology.

“Come sit with him, maybe he’ll start listening to me.”

Din looked down at the dryer he was attempting to fix. It dried clothes well enough but everything came out of it smelling far too much like burning electronics for Din’s peace of mind. 

“Okay, but if the dryer blows up next time you use it it’s not my fault.”

“Sure,” Luke agreed, easily. 

Din narrowed his eyes at him suspiciously as he followed Luke up to the wide room that he used for classes, but of course with the helmet Luke was none-the-wiser. 

Grogu was sitting quietly in the middle of a mat that covered the stone floor beneath, but he began cooing enthusiastically at Luke the second they arrived.

“Yes, I know this is your father,” Luke said to Grogu. “We’ve met.” 

Din needed a moment to get his head around the idea that Grogu might think of him as _father_ , but Luke was guiding him to the middle of the mat with a hand on his arm. He sat as directed and Grogu immediately got up and attempted to climb into Din’s lap.

“I think you’re supposed to be listening, kid.”

“That’s fine,” Luke said, settling himself into a cross-legged pose that only worked if one wasn’t wearing armour. “I’m hoping he’ll be able to concentrate better with you where he can see you.” 

Din shrugged and helped Grogu get settled.

After a moment, Luke closed his eyes and began to speak.

_“There is no emotion, there is peace._

_There is no ignorance, there is knowledge._

_There is no passion, there is serenity._

_There is no chaos, there is harmony._

_There is no death, there is the Force."_

Grogu seemed to know what was expected of him and closed his eyes too. Din followed suit, letting Luke’s calm voice wash over him.

Something about the timbre of the chant made him think of the structure that stood a few hundred yards away from the stone building Luke and Grogu lived and studied in. Luke had explained that it had been a temple built by Force-sensitive people some two thousand years ago. Not Jedi, as apparently not all people who used the Force became Jedi, but sentients with similar skills. Din sometimes went up there at the beginning of the day, once Grogu had eaten breakfast and Luke had finished his morning meditation. When Din was somewhere other than Yavin 4 R2 took over Grogu duty, which Luke assured him ended with R2 wearing Grogu’s breakfast more often than not. Somehow the idea of R2 tolerating a tiny being such as Grogu throwing food at him with regularity assured Din that the droid could be trusted. 

The temple itself was simple: eight standing stones, approximately three times as tall as Din, stood upright in the packed earth with a flat stone at the centre. The shadows of the standing stones waxed and waned with the sun, but in the morning long trails of light lit up the central platform. 

The feeling the temple gave him was the same as when he handled one of the Jedi artefacts Luke asked him to collect, or when Cara mentioned some festival from Alderaan that she had celebrated as a child. He didn’t know what name to give it, except it was something precious, something to be cared for. He had never imagined finding such a thing outside of the Watch and he was not sure if it was right that he guarded that feeling so well.

But he also thought about collecting more of this understanding of people, connections that had nothing to do with the armour he wore or the weapons he carried. He felt no less dedicated to the ways of the Watch because of it. It felt more like an expansion: echoed by the reaching stones of the temple, and the easy way Luke had accepted first Grogu, then Din. 

He’d told Din that he had meant to wait until he had more Jedi teachings before he started to pass on their ways, but then Grogu had needed him so he’d changed his plans. Just like that, for a child he’d never met before. 

And now, six months later, Din and Grogu were sitting in a school Luke had created, while Luke shared pieces of his destroyed people’s culture with them, and Din held it all as close as he dared. 

  
  
  
  
  


The following day was even hotter than usual, the breeze non-existent. Din only ventured outside because he was not certain that Luke would appreciate Din taking apart the main doors to make them more blast-proof, so he’d decided to see what Luke and Grogu were doing instead.

Luke was balanced on one hand not far from the temple, his legs straight up in the air. He’d taken off his outer robes and as Din approached them he could clearly see the way the muscles in Luke’s arms and neck bunched and shifted as he moved. Around him, seven fist-sized stones hovered, almost motionless, about four feet from the ground. As Din got closer he could see Grogu was standing in front of Luke, his arms held upwards and a beseeching look on his face. Din knew the look well and he hoped that whatever Grogu was asking for, Luke had the good sense to refuse. 

“No, I’m not using the Force on you,” Luke was saying. “What if I dropped you? Your father would kill me.”

“Well, I’d be pretty annoyed,” Din offered, and Luke wobbled alarmingly before flipping onto his feet. 

“You were sneaking,” he accused, with a narrow look.

“I’m wearing thirty pounds of armour: I can’t sneak.”

Luke blushed, which was ridiculous. People who could stand on one hand and lift rocks with their mind shouldn’t blush.

“Any luck with the holocron?” Din asked just for something to say, and Luke’s face fell. 

“Yes, come on. I’ll show you.”

Din half wished he hadn’t said anything, as it was clear the Jedi data chip contained nothing Luke wanted to know. By this time Grogu had made it close enough to grip the top of Din’s boot, so he took only a moment to scoop him up before following Luke down the steep hill.

It was just a simple repeating message, but after it got half-way through the second time Din tried to switch it off. It didn’t respond, of course, Luke had already explained that most of the artefacts he collected on Luke’s behalf wouldn’t respond to him, but it was an instinctual response: he didn’t want to listen to a man who was most likely dead announce the end of his culture—his people. Luke made a sharp gesture, and the holocron folded into itself. 

Grogu cooed softly into the ensuing silence, looking between Luke and Din. 

“Do you recognise him?” Luke asked, and Din shook his head. “He was my old master: Obi-Wan Kenobi. He was one of the greatest Jedi of the Republic.” 

“Was?”

“He died some time ago.”

“May his memory light your way,” Din said, for a lack of anything else. 

He didn’t think the Madalorian saying would mean much to Luke, but Luke gave him a wan smile.

“Thank you.” 

Din wanted to offer some comfort, to put a hand on his shoulder, perhaps, but had no idea how to go about it. Luke touched him all the time. He touched Grogu too, even when Din was holding him. They’d had a whole conversation yesterday evening with Grogu curled into Din’s shoulder, asleep, and Luke’s hand on Grogu’s back. 

In the end he lightly touched two fingers to the back of Luke’s hand for a second. He felt ridiculous right up until the moment that Luke turned his hand and entangled their fingers together. 

“It’s hard,” Luke began. “Being one of the last of them. I’m sad and angry for their loss, but I sometimes feel like it’s too much pressure to live up to their legacy.”

Din nodded, still stuck on the experience of having Luke’s hand in his own. Grogu made everything a little more awkward by leaning over and patting their entwined hands.

“Yes,” Din eventually agreed, deciding the best policy was to ignore what Grogu was doing. “Although there are more Mandalorians than Jedi, I think.”

“I’m not sure comparing numbers helps. There are more Wookies than Jedi, but I don’t think my friend Chewbacca would say they were luckier, or that their culture and people were better protected from being lost. A few hundred, a handful, one. That’s not enough to continue the complexities of a whole people, a whole way of life.”

“What do you do then?”

Luke shrugged.

“You carry what you can.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


“What does it mean, ‘there’s no emotion’?” Din asked. Luke had repeated the mantra again today and Din had actually paid attention this time. 

They were sitting opposite each other in Luke’s quarters: Luke tinkering with what looked like a spare astromech booster while Din tried to remove some of the gunk from a personal comm array that had seen better days. 

Luke looked up and put aside the booster as if to give the question his whole attention, but Din kept on working. 

“The Jedi order believed that strong emotions, such as jealousy, fear, anger, all led to the Dark Side.”

“I’m guessing that’s bad.”

At some point in its history, it seemed like someone had used the array as a mini battering ram. Given that Luke had said that one of the main battles of the war had been on an old base not far from them, that might very well be true. 

Luke snorted. “You’d be right. The Dark Side represents the opposite to all the Jedi held dear: no compassion, only hate and a never ending thirst for power, to conquer. Jedi who hold on too tightly to what they love are in danger of falling to the Dark Side.” 

“So you’re not allowed to love?”

“No, I think the Code is an impossible and simplified idea: something to strive for rather than ever reach.” 

“I hold onto Grogu,” Din admitted. _And you_ , he couldn’t quite bring himself to say. 

“The Jedi thought that that was dangerous, that a Jedi who would do anything to save someone they loved would always commit acts of evil.”

“And you, what do you think?”

“I understand that for a group of people as powerful as the Jedi—and many were more powerful than me—that jealousy and fear and anger could all lead down a dark path. My father...,” Luke stopped and took a breath. “I know that Jedi must be mindful of their feelings, must be aware of the depths and boundaries of their emotions, but I don’t think that means that they, _we_ , can’t love. And I definitely don’t think the Jedi teachings are applicable to all peoples, or even that all Jedi teachings from before are applicable to me, now."

“So you allow yourself to feel?” Din asked, having finally given up on the comms array and put it to one side. 

“Yes.”

Din nodded. There was now a tension between them that he was unsure as to how to break. He wished Grogu was with them instead of sleeping soundly in his room: he was great at destroying a quiet moment.

“I don’t think I’d know how to stop,” Din offered. He couldn’t imagine deciding not to love Grogu. 

“Yes,” Luke agreed. “Caring is like light, it gets in no matter what you do.”

Din cast about for something, anything else to talk about. Luke was watching him with a look that he couldn’t quite parse. Then Luke reached out and placed two fingers to the skin of Din’s jaw, in the narrow space between his helmet and cloak. 

He didn’t know what to do. He felt the same indecision as when he’d stood in front of the terminal on Tython, knowing what needed to be done but having no template to follow, no path in the Way to guide him. Discovering that there were boundaries to what he had been taught had been terrifying, but he’d done what he’d needed to do and he’d felt no less Mandalorian for it. Now he had no idea what was needed. He thought he knew what he wanted to do, but he wasn’t sure if that counted as the same thing.

“I’m sorry,” Luke said, looking down and moving his hand. “I thought—” He stopped.

“What did you think?”

“That you wanted me to touch you,” Luke finished with an awkward little laugh. 

It was hard to reconcile this sweet man with the Jedi who had torn through a squadron of dark troopers as if they were nothing. 

“I do want you to touch me,” Din admitted. 

Luke looked up, his expression hopeful.

“How?” he asked.

Din brought his hand up to the smooth, comforting metal of his helmet for a moment.

“You can’t see me,” Din finally decided.

Luke nodded, as if this was a completely normal thing to say: as if he hadn’t seen Din without his helmet the first time they had met. Instead of pointing that out, he undid the band of fabric that held together his outer robes and placed it over his eyes, closing them first, and wrapped it twice around his head before tying it off.

“Is this okay?”

Din worked for a moment to find his voice. “Yes, it’s okay.”

He carefully removed his helmet, narrowing his eyes for a moment to let them get used to the difference in brightness. The world always looked a little flatter without his visor feeding him a constant stream of information about his surroundings. He hesitated a moment longer, then stood and removed the rest of his armour, carefully placing it beside him in such a way that he would be able to put it back on in seconds if he needed to. Then he sat opposite Luke again, in nothing but his hard-wearing under-trousers and shirt.

This time when Luke reached out he was able to run his hand down the side of Din’s face unimpeded. Din leaned into the touch and instinctively kissed the thumb that ran over his lips. Luke quirked a smile, so Din did it again, watching Luke carefully for his reaction. Luke stilled for a moment, then leaned forward and pressed his lips to Din’s. It was a soft kiss, tentative, but as Din responded Luke deepened it and suddenly he wasn’t close enough. Din dragged Luke into his lap and Luke went easily, wrapping his legs around Din’s waist and threading his hands into his hair. Din pushed aside Luke’s robes until he could put his hands on his bare skin.

It became another thing he wanted to keep, another thing he didn’t expect to have but wanted just for him. The way Luke shook and shuddered as they moved against each other; the surprising warmth of Luke’s skin against his own; how intensely he concentrated as he pulled pleasure from Din. 

After, Luke kept on the blindfold even as they settled down together in his narrow bunk: Din’s armour safely within reach. Din touched the soft fabric folded over Luke’s eyes. He wanted to thank Luke, but he probably wouldn’t even understand what he had done that deserved thanks. Instead he put a hand over Luke’s and hoped that was enough. 

  
  
  
  
  


Luke was a surprisingly heavy sleeper for a magic-wielding warrior. He also snored, ever so slightly. Din watched him sleep for a few moments before rising and putting on his armour quickly and silently. 

Two doors down was Grogu’s room where R2D2 beeped softly at him as he entered.

“I’ll take him this morning,” Din told him, and R2 made a reply that Din thought sounded like relief. 

Grogu blinked up at him sleepily as Din picked him up and dressed him in his usual robes. He curled up against Din’s neck as they made their way out of the cool stone corridors into the early morning sun. 

It was warm but not yet humid and the breeze brought the scent of the red flowers that grew at the base of the temple. Din hadn’t had a particular destination in mind when he’d come outside, but the smell tugged him up the slope.

To not feel too deeply, to have to guard against things that were forbidden in the Jedi Code, that was a lot to ask of one person. He was not surprised that Luke had decided that not all the commands of his people would hold true for him as one of the last of his kind. It took a particular type of courage to decide which tenets one would obey and which were no longer relevant. Almost all of the Jedi were gone: their books, their art, their beliefs destroyed along with their home, their great temple on Coruscant. 

_You carry what you can._

Beskar had an incredibly high weight to strength ratio: it was one of the lightest, strongest metals in the galaxy. He thought that perhaps his helmet and his son were of about the same weight. Not the same worth, of course. He’d already established that his helmet was not worth the tiny creature that at that very moment, was speaking to him in his language of coos and exclamations. Grogu was fully awake now, looking around with interest despite the fact that this place had been his home for the last six months. 

They reached the temple, walking over the long shadows to the central stone. The place was warm and empty except for the two of them. As far as Din knew he, Grogu, Luke and R2 were the only sentients in a hundred mile radius. The native species lived further south, and the _Razor Crest II_ had never picked up any other signs of habitation when he’d flown over. 

Slowly, so as not to startle Grogu, Din removed his helmet and placed it on the ground beside him. The sun was piercing in its brightness, with only his fragile eyelids offering intermittent protection. He couldn’t understand how people lived like this all the time. 

Grogu distracted him from the pain of his eyes by batting his small fist repeatedly along his jawline until Din titled his face down towards him.

“Yes, yes I see you. I’m here.”

His son. 

Grogu wrapped one hand in the fabric of his cloak, his tiny knuckles brushing the skin of Din’s neck. With the other he reached out, as if trying to touch the warm shafts of sunlight that filtered from between the great stones of the temple. Slowly, Din began to spin in place. Grogu waved his arms in delight, laughing each time a stripe of sun fell over them. _Love and light_ , Din thought. That was the feeling he’d been holding close, that was what he wanted more of.

Love, and light.

  
  
  
  
  


_Epilogue_

_“Din?” Luke said from behind them._

_The sun had climbed a little further into the sky and Din had been starting to think about getting Grogu back for breakfast when he'd heard Luke approach. He thought about putting his helmet back on, but only for a moment._

_“It’s okay,” he replied, turning to face Luke. “It’s okay.”_

  
  
  



End file.
